Proverbs 27:9 says, “the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.” Of all the ways the Lord treats me better than I deserve, having good friends is one of the best. I’ll be spending the rest of this week in North Carolina sharing, laughing, and praying with some of my buddies from seminary. During our time at Gordon-Conwell nine of us met weekly for prayer and accountability. Upon graduation we committed to meet together once a year. We are now on our eighth reunion. I think I’ve missed only once. Our weekends are invariably full of football, food, challenging conversation, and usually a few tears. It’s a blessing to get together (and a blessing that our wives let us go!).
All of that is an introduction to the blog posts for the rest of the week. I’ll be posting a few brief devotionals from the book of Malachi. I’ll be back “live” next week.
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“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say “How have you loved us?” (Malachi 1:2)
The book of Malachi is made up of six arguments between God and his people. The first argument (1:2-5) begins with a theological fact. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But the people don’t buy it. “How have you loved us?” they ask. You can almost hear them murmur. “Have you forgotten what the Babylonians did to us? They looted Jerusalem, leveled our homes, and tore down the Temple. Well excuse me, but how have you loved us?!”
It’s an amazingly contemporary question. Parents ask it when they lose a child. Abuse victims ask it. Divorced spouses ask it. Sometimes all it takes is a bad afternoon or a computer crash and we start asking, “Lord, how have you loved us?!”
The Lord’s reply is curious. “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” The is comparative language, a way of stating opposites. But it’s more than that. It is the language of election. Jacob and Esau were twins, but before they had done anything good or bad, God chose Jacob (Romans 9:10-13). He decided out of his own good will to set his affection on Jacob and make him his treasured possession.
The Lord’s reply is curious, but good. It reminds us of our great privilege. No matter how bleak our present, we know God will guide our future because he chose us in the past.
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“Yet I have loved Jacob…” (v. 1:2)
We may think the doctrine of election impractical, but God doesn’t. He wants us to know a love that is more than just common grace. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that the Father causes his sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and he sends rain on the just and on the unjust. That’s common grace–sun, breath, rain, life, water, clothes.
But that doesn’t begin to describe how God loves his people. If you belong to Christ, you are loved individually and particularly. Don’t think: “God loves the world. I guess I’m in the world, so he must love me too.” That doesn’t do justice to the electing, redeeming love whereby God loves you, and even likes you, at the cost of his Son’s blood.
You are loved like a parent loves a child, not like a nursery worker loves a child. A nursery worker loves children with a general, common grace, kind of love. That’s great. But parents love those same children with a love stronger and deeper and more particular.
Oh, how we need the doctrine of unconditional election! Without it, we will not know how we are loved. It’s not a doctrine to divide people or to be snooty about. It’s a doctrine that demonstrates God’s selective and particular love for you.
